Arrest of 12 Academic Figures in Turkey Following Signature of a Statement

Turkish police have arrested 12 academic figures who signed a statement opposing Ankara's military operations against Kurdish rebels. According to the Associated Press, citing Turkish media, these 12 individuals are all professors at Kocaeli University and were detained on Friday, January 25. The Associated Press reports that 9 others are also at risk of arrest and legal action in this context. The Turkish prosecutor's office began its judicial investigation on Thursday regarding a statement recently signed by over a thousand academic figures opposing the Turkish military's assault on Kurdish rebels. The charges attributed to the signatories of this statement include 'insulting the country' and aiding 'terrorist propaganda' for supporting the illegal Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). The prosecutor's action followed strong criticism from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who called for legal action against the signatories, including renowned linguist Noam Chomsky, and deemed their signing of the statement as an act of 'betrayal' to the country. The statement, signed by over a thousand academic figures from Turkey and other countries, calls on the Turkish government to 'stop the massacre.' The signatories also emphasized that they do not want to be 'accomplices' to the Turkish state and thus demand the resumption of peace efforts. However, Erdoğan claims that the signatories used the same rhetoric as 'terrorists' and did not reference the violent actions of the rebels. The PKK, which the Turkish government and its Western allies label as a 'terrorist' group, has been in conflict with the Turkish state for over 30 years, resulting in tens of thousands of deaths from their numerous clashes. It has been previously reported that Duzce University in northwestern Turkey expelled one of its sociology professors for signing the aforementioned statement.